All our knowledge begins with
the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason.
There is nothing higher than reason.

All thought must, directly or indirectly, by way of certain characters,
relate ultimately to intuitions, and therefore, with us, to sensibility,
because in no other way can an object be given to us.

Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them
as means to your end.

By a lie, a man... annihilates his dignity as a man.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is
mere intellectual play.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

If man makes himself a worm he must not complain when he is trodden
on.

Immaturity is the incapacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance
of another.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics
he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

Intuition and concepts constitute... the elements of all our knowledge,
so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding
to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should
make ourselves happy

It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary
that so long as I live I should live honourably.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become
universal law.

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with
many a philosophic wreck.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but
how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Nothing is divine but what is agreeable to reason.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and
lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices,
but weigh them.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for
the whole world.

To be is to do.

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe
- the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.

What can I know? What ought I to do? What can I hope?

Have
patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of
time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.

Science
is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

The
history of the human race, viewed as a whole may be regarded as the
realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution,
internally, and for this purpose, also externally perfect, as the only
state in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be
fully developed.

Immanuel Kant was born in
the East Prussian city of Königsberg, studied at its university, and
worked there as a tutor and professor for more than forty years, never
travelling more than fifty miles from home. Although his outward life
was one of legendary calm and regularity, Kant's intellectual work easily
justified his own claim to have effected a Copernican revolution in
philosophy. Beginning with his Inaugural Dissertation (1770) on the
difference between right- and left-handed spatial orientations, Kant
patiently worked out the most comprehensive and influential philosophical
programme of the modern era. His central thesis—that the
possibility of human knowledge presupposes the active participation
of the human mind—is deceptively simple, but the details of its
application are notoriously complex.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who
began in the tradition of Continental rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza
and Leibniz), was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by Hume's attacks
on the rationalist account of causality, and ended by producing a critical
philosophy which in some ways synthesizes elements from both the empiricist
tradition (Gassendi, Locke, Berkeley and Hume) and the Continental rationalists.
At least, this is where Kant placed himself in the picture, whether
accurately or not is open to question.

Kant
sought to show that some basic principles of science and mathematics
which in fact tell us things about the world (and are therefore synthetic,
could be known a priori -- that is by intuition alone without experience.
While allowing that some synthetic a priori judgements are possible,
Kant holds that a good deal of metaphysics which claims to know about
the world by reasoning alone is illegitimate. The Kantian system has
been enormously influential over the last two centuries.

Kant's
ethical works have also had an enormous influence. The distinction between
categorical and hypothetical imperatives, the concept of the good will
and the idea that ethical judgements should not be made on the basis
of the consequences of actions but on whether they are right or not
measured by the standard of the categorical imperative have made Kantianism
a great contender with Utilitarianism and other ethical systems.

1724

April
22, born in Königsburg, East Prussia, to a family of the pietist sect.

1734

Enters
the Collegium Fredericianum to study theology, excells in the classics.

1740

Enters
the University of Konigsburg and studies mathematics and physics.

1746

Finishes
study at the university and spends the next nine years employed as
a private tutor. His father dies.

1755

Earns
his masters degree and lectures at the university for the next fifteen
years as a Privatdozent.

1766

Earns
the post of the under-librarian.

1770

Finally
promoted to professorship of logic and metaphysics.

1781

Publishes
Critique of Pure Reason.

1783

Publishes
Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics.

1785

Publishes
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.

1788

Publishes
Critique of Practical Reason.

1790

Publishes
Critique of Judgement.

1792

Is
embroiled with the Government review regarding his religious doctrines
and prohibited from lecturing or writing on religious subjects by
the king Frederick William II.

1793

Publishes
Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.

1794

Withdraws
from society but continues his lectures.

1795

Reduces
his lectures to one each week.

1797

Retires
from his post at the university. The death of King Frederick William
II removes the ban on his religious writing and lecturing. Publishes
Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals.

1798

Publishes
Anthropology, Considered from a Pragmatic Viewpoint.

1804

February
12, dies in Konigsburg having never travelled more than forty miles
from his home town.

Life

Born
in Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia), April 22, 1724, Kant received
his education at the Collegium Fredericianum and the University of Königsberg.
At the college he studied chiefly the classics, and at the university
he studied physics and mathematics. After his father died, he was compelled
to halt his university career and earn his living as a private tutor.
In 1755, aided by a friend, he resumed his studies and obtained his
doctorate. Thereafter, for 15 years he taught at the university, lecturing
first on science and mathematics, but gradually enlarging his field
of concentration to cover almost all branches of philosophy. Although
Kant's lectures and works written during this period established his
reputation as an original philosopher, he did not receive a chair at
the university until 1770, when he was made professor of logic and metaphysics.
For the next 27 years he continued to teach and attracted large numbers
of students to Königsberg. Kant's unorthodox religious teachings, which
were based on rationalism rather than revelation, brought him into conflict
with the government of Prussia, and in 1792 he was forbidden by Frederick
William II, king of Prussia, to teach or write on religious subjects.
Kant obeyed this order for five years until the death of the king and
then felt released from his obligation. In 1798, the year following
his retirement from the university, he published a summary of his religious
views. He died February 12, 1804.